MDPI APImdpi.com ↗
Search MDPI articles, retrieve full-text sections, extract species names, key findings, and journal metadata including impact factors via 7 structured endpoints.
What is the MDPI API?
The MDPI API covers 7 endpoints for accessing open-access academic content from mdpi.com, including full article text, author lists, DOIs, and journal metrics. The search_articles endpoint accepts a keyword query and returns paginated results with titles, abstracts, publication dates, and journal names. Other endpoints extract structured body sections, organism species names, key findings, and complete journal listings with impact factors and CiteScores.
curl -X GET 'https://api.parse.bot/scraper/8b72bf62-fbca-461a-86b1-518851005fd3/search_articles?page=1&query=climate+change' \ -H 'X-API-Key: $PARSE_API_KEY'
Typed, relational, agent-ready
A generated client with real types, enums, and the links between objects — the structure a flat JSON response can't carry. Autocompletes in your editor and reads cleanly to coding agents.
- Fully typed · autocompletes
- Objects link to objects
- Typed errors & pagination
Typed Python client. Set up the SDK in your uv project, then pull this API’s typed client:
uv add parse-sdk uv run parse init uv run parse add --marketplace mdpi-com-api
uv run parse add --marketplace pulls a pinned snapshot of this canonical API — it won’t change underneath you. To customize it, subscribe and swap to your own copy.
"""MDPI Open Access API — search articles, extract species names, and browse journals."""
from parse_apis.mdpi_open_access_api import Mdpi, NotFound
client = Mdpi()
# Search for articles about a topic; limit= caps total items fetched.
for result in client.searchresults.search(query="plant allelopathy", limit=3):
print(result.title, result.doi, result.journal)
# Drill into a specific article by path (constructible resource).
article = client.articles.get(path="/2223-7747/13/5/626")
print(article.title, article.doi, article.authors)
# Walk sub-resources: sentences filtered by keyword.
for sent in article.sentences.list(keyword="allelopathy", limit=5):
print(sent.section, sent.sentence[:80])
# Extract species names from the article.
for plant in article.plants.list(limit=10):
print(plant.name)
# Get structured insights (conclusions, findings, observations).
insight = article.insights.get()
print(len(insight.conclusions), len(insight.key_findings), len(insight.observations))
# Browse journal catalog.
for journal_entry in client.journalentries.list(limit=5):
print(journal_entry.name, journal_entry.issn, journal_entry.impact_factor)
# Typed error handling: catch not-found on a bad slug.
try:
bad_journal = client.articles.get(path="/0000-0000/99/99/999")
print(bad_journal.title)
except NotFound:
print("article not found")
print("exercised: searchresults.search / articles.get / sentences.list / plants.list / insights.get / journalentries.list / NotFound")Full-text search over MDPI's open-access article catalog. Returns paginated article summaries with title, DOI, abstract, publication date, and journal name. Omitting the query returns recent articles across all journals. Results are ordered by relevance when a query is provided.
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| page | integer | Page number for pagination. |
| query | string | Search keyword or phrase. Omitting returns recent articles. |
{
"type": "object",
"fields": {
"total": "integer total number of matching articles",
"articles": "array of article summary objects with id, title, doi, pub_date, abstract, url, and journal fields"
},
"sample": {
"data": {
"total": 0,
"articles": [
{
"id": 27960,
"doi": "10.3390/su5083484",
"url": null,
"title": "Public Understanding of Climate Change as a Social Dilemma",
"journal": "Sustainability",
"abstract": "Climate change is often referred to as one of the most complicated challenges facing humanity.",
"pub_date": "2013-08-12T22:00:00Z"
}
]
},
"status": "success"
}
}About the MDPI API
Article Search and Full-Text Retrieval
The search_articles endpoint accepts a query string and an optional page integer, returning a total count alongside an array of article objects — each carrying id, title, doi, pub_date, abstract, url, and journal. When the query parameter is omitted, the endpoint returns recent articles. For deeper content, get_article_details accepts a path in ISSN/volume/issue/article format (e.g. /2223-7747/13/5/626) and returns structured sections — an array of objects with title and content fields — along with authors, doi, abstract, and journal.
Sentence Extraction and Species Name Detection
get_article_full_text_sentences returns every sentence from an article's abstract and body sections, each tagged with its section name. A keyword parameter (case-insensitive) filters results to only sentences containing that term. The extract_plant_names endpoint identifies binomial nomenclature — capitalized genus plus lowercase species epithet — from italicized text in the article, returning an array of matched name strings such as Nitraria tangutorum. This is useful for biology, ecology, and pharmacology literature workflows where taxonomic entity extraction matters.
Insights and Journal Metadata
get_article_insights classifies an article's body sections by heading keywords and returns three arrays: conclusions (from conclusion/summary/perspective sections), key_findings (from result/finding sections), and observations (from discussion/observation sections). For journal-level data, list_all_journals returns every MDPI journal with name, issn, if (impact factor), and citescore. get_journal_details accepts a journal slug (e.g. plants, sustainability) and returns a rich journal object including impactFactor, citeScore, establishedYear, quartileRanking, totalArticles, plus menu, socials, and journalHeroItems arrays.
The MDPI API is a managed, monitored endpoint for mdpi.com — not a raw scraper you maintain. Every endpoint is automatically health-checked on a schedule, and when mdpi.com changes and a check fails, the API is automatically queued for repair and re-verified. It is built to keep working as the site underneath it changes.
This isn't an official mdpi.com API — it's an independent, maintained REST wrapper over public data. Where the source has no official API (or only a limited one), Parse gives you a stable contract over a source that never promised one, and keeps it current. Need a new endpoint or field? You can revise it yourself in plain English and the agent rebuilds it against the live site in minutes — contributing the change back to the shared API is free.
Will this API break when the source site changes?+
Is this an official API from the source site?+
Can I fix or extend this API myself if I need a new endpoint or field?+
What happens if I call an endpoint that has an issue?+
- Build a literature review tool that searches MDPI articles by keyword and surfaces abstracts and DOIs for citation tracking.
- Extract organism species names from biology or pharmacology papers using
extract_plant_namesto populate a taxonomic database. - Aggregate key findings and conclusions across multiple articles with
get_article_insightsto identify research trends in a field. - Filter article full text by keyword using
get_article_full_text_sentencesto locate specific claims or measurements within long papers. - Compile a ranked list of MDPI journals by impact factor and CiteScore using
list_all_journalsfor journal selection workflows. - Retrieve journal details by slug using
get_journal_detailsto displayquartileRanking,totalArticles, and impact metrics in a researcher dashboard. - Monitor recent MDPI publications in a topic area by polling
search_articleswithout a query and filtering by journal name.
| Tier | Price | Credits/month | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 100 | 5 req/min |
| Hobby | $30/mo | 1,000 | 20 req/min |
| Developer | $100/mo | 5,000 | 100 req/min |
One credit = one API call regardless of which marketplace API you call. Exceeding the rate limit returns a 429 response. Authenticate with the X-API-Key header.
Does MDPI have an official developer API?+
What does `get_article_insights` actually return, and how are sections classified?+
conclusions array; 'result' and 'finding' headings populate key_findings; 'discussion' and 'observation' headings populate observations. Sections whose headings don't match any of these groups are not included in the response. This means introductory or methods sections are not surfaced by this endpoint.Does `extract_plant_names` cover all organism types, or only plants?+
Can I retrieve citation counts or reference lists for an article?+
get_article_details returns sections, authors, doi, abstract, journal, and title, but does not include a reference list or citation metrics. You can fork this API on Parse and revise it to add an endpoint that parses the references section.How does pagination work in `search_articles`, and is there a limit on results per page?+
search_articles endpoint accepts a page integer and returns a total count of matching articles. The response does not expose a per_page field or allow configuring result set size — the number of articles returned per page is fixed by the source. Use the total field alongside successive page values to iterate through all results.